Photo: Moment RF
After a fire at the LyondellBasell chemical plant in La Porte last week, some Houstonians are raising concerns about whether we can actually trust officials who tell us the air in the area around the plant is safe to breathe.
One person raising concerns is KPRC 950’s Kenny Webster, who is calling out Lina Hidalgo specifically for lying about chemical fires in the past. “Way back in 2019, there was something called ‘the ITC Tank Farm Fire’ in Deer Park,” he said. “It was a chemical fire, and Lina Hidalgo assured everybody in Houston the air pollution was fine, and we’re not breathing in toxins.”
Webster went on to detail the simple fact that Lina Hidalgo was completely wrong about that. As we now know, residents in the area were breathing in toxic levels of benzene for weeks. We also now know that the Harris County air testing facility wasn’t even online at the time, and many of those residents may have been exposed to cancer-causing chemicals.
He went on to call out the fact that while Hidalgo has addressed the LyondellBasell fire on official social media pages, on her personal accounts, things are different. “Now we have a crisis happening and she’s not even talking about it!” he said. “She’s upset she can’t get Shaboozey tickets and go to the Rodeo.”
This comes as many Harris County residents and other officials continue to question her credibility following an incident last week that resulted in her being removed from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Hidalgo has continued to claim that she was a victim in that incident due to her race and gender and that she was “manhandled” by HLSR staff and security—a claim that the Rodeo vehemently denies and that has thus far been unsubstantiated.
So if you can’t trust the County Judge, who can you trust? Unfortunately, the answer to that question remains unclear. We asked University of Houston Energy Fellow Ed Hirs how we’d know our air monitoring equipment is actually functional and things are as safe as officials tell us they are, and he answered: “That’s something we only find out about after the fact.”
Hirs continued: “Sometimes the equipment is reliable, and it does work, but again, we won’t know for some days or weeks.”
Essentially, we don’t know what we don’t know. Hirs did, however, point to state and federal agencies as a backstop and said they’ll also be keeping an eye on all of this.
We also reached out to LyondellBasell, as well as the City of La Porte and the Harris County Office of Emergency Management. LyondellBasell gave us the following statement: “The emergency response activities at the LyondellBasell Bayport Choate site at 10801 Choate Rd., Pasadena, TX, 77507 have ended. However, the site continues to experience an extended operational upset resulting in visible flaring. Flaring is a safety and environmental control device used to manage and combust process materials. During this time, the community may see increased activity on site. You do not need to take any action. Work continues to conclude the event. Questions can be directed to askbayport@lyb.com.”